How to explain the following weeks in so many words…
A few chosen adjectives/words might include: animosity, tension, lust, pain, heartache, fear, danger, nightmare.
But the one word that appears the most overall,
love.
It's such a dangerous and tricky thing but in the end it's usually the only feeling that matters, that outshines all others.
At least that's the way it's been with Rose.
No matter what's happened in the last few weeks, I've had Rose to turn to and she in turn has had me to lean and cry on.
I guess the best place to start would be the night Kirova called.
I was on an extended vacation than I had initially thought. It was two weeks after the get together at my mother's house. There were so many good days after that one that to be honest, I'd forgotten all about work and our troubles. At least I tried to. Rose and I had each other and that was enough to keep us preoccupied and our minds off of whatever trouble was going on out in the real world.
We rarely left the apartment except to grocery shop and window-shopping in town. Some days we'd train and she learned a few defensive and offensive moves that would be of help to her if it came to it.
The majority of the days, we stayed in, nice and warm inside the house. I woke up every morning with Rose to look forward to.
Although she tried to with hold her self and strayed for my bed to taunt and tempt me, she lasted only two days and by the third she was back to sleeping in my bed, close beside me. I'd wake up to her wide eyes staring directly at me or with her head against my chest.
That morning though, everything was different.
Rose wasn't smiling like she was most mornings.
She was resting on her arm, running a slow steady finger along my bare chest. I couldn't stifle the shutter than ran through me. It didn't stop her from running her finger along my skin. She kept moving, up and across my chest and then back down again. When she finished, she'd draw imaginary patterns and then flatten her hand against my chest and start all over.
She was so close that the end of her eyelashes brushed against the top of my chest.
She had burrowed into me.
She knew I was awake but didn't say anything or greet me with one of her bright smiles.
"What's wrong Roza?"
I'd been using that name a lot lately.
I'd been doing a lot that I'd never done before lately.
Little things that made her happy.
Which in turn made me happy.
She continued her pattern, the end of her finger barely touching me.
"Something's wrong," was all she said simply.
Her finger started making little circular motions around my arms where my muscle flexed.
"I gathered that by the sad look on your face. What is it Roza?"
She pursed her lips close together, focusing on her patterns.
Growing a little impatient and more curious by the second, in one fast motion I grabbed Rose by the waist and rolled her on top of me.
She didn't giggle the way she usually did.
Now I was even more curious and worried at what was making her act in such a way.
She folded her arms over one another and rested her chin on top of her hands lying on top of me.
She moved up and down as I breathed.
"Rose…"
"Something bad happened."
I ran a hasty hand through my hair and sighed.
"What happened?"
"I don't know. I have this feeling that I get before something bad happens and I right now I have that feeling."
"Maybe its something else."
"No. Something's wrong," she said firm.
"What do you think has happened?" I asked trying a new tactic.
"I think…I think my father is acting on his evil plots to take over the world," she mumbles turning her head to the side.
I chuckled beneath her and she looked up.
"Rose, you're being a little over dramatic. Seriously, what's wrong?"
She sighed and sat up, straddling me.
Normally this position would have put a few ideas and a couple of dirty thoughts in my mind but like I mentioned before, today was different. I didn't move in such a way so that we ended up in a long passionate kiss or a steamy make out session. I just wanted to know what was wrong.
"I think my father's done something. I think he's made his move."
This caught my attention, especially the serious tone in her voice.
I sat up and Rose slid off of me ending up criss-crossed at the end of the bed.
"What? How do you know?"
"A mob daughter's intuition." She waited a moment and breathed, closing her eyes. "I just know."
I ran a hand over my face, riding it of any sleep and waking up entirely.
"This isn't good."
"You believe me?" she asked sounding surprised.
I still took a while for it to occur to her that she always had someone on her side, that she always had me.
"Of course," I said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Breaking out of her previous unhappy character, she flew into me and locked me in a chokehold with her arms tight around my neck. I just as quickly reacted and held her tightly to my chest never wanting to let go.
"Will you call Kirova then and ask what's going on with the case?" She asked, her voice hidden and distorted by the side of my neck.
"I think that's a good idea. It seems too good to be true that we've been on vacation for this long without anything happening."
I reached for my cell phone on the nightstand; still holding Rose in one hand, and saw I had a few missed messages.
One was from Christian saying they came home two days ago and wanted to know where we were.
"I guess we should have checked your phone more often," Rose said reading the messages. She unwrapped her self from around me and turned so she could look at the phone easier. Not fighting the urge to always have her in my hold, I secured her in my arms as she leaned back against my chest.
"We would have if you hadn't distracted me so much with your kisses," I tried to joke.
It worked, with Rose letting out a small laugh.
The rest of the messages were photos from Christian and Lissa's trip. By the time we scrolled to the last of the messages, it was only from Kirova, dated to early this morning.
It was an order for me to come in ASAP.
"This can't be good," I muttered for the second time that morning.
Reluctantly, Rose and I untangle our selves and I went to get dressed. I showered the quickest I ever had, probably breaking my own record and came out of my bathroom in steam and a towel around my waist.
Rose, never growing accustomed to seeing me shirtless, looked up and raked her eyes over my body. This must have been what women were talking when they say men undressed them with their eyes.
"Any more texts from Kirova?" I asked going toward my closet.
Rose, lying on her stomach across my neatly made bed, lost the smile she'd been wearing while looking me over.
"No. My feeling is worsening. I'm getting worried Dimitri. I tried texting both Lissa and Christiana and neither of them answered."
"They're probably just enjoying being home and are celebrating. In their own way."
"For two days? How could two people celebrate for two days?"
I gave her an incredulous look.
"Two normal people couldn't possibly celebrate for two days straight but Christian and Lissa-"
"Never mind," she interrupted putting a hand up to stop me. "I get the picture. I just want to know they're okay."
As if on cue the phone buzzed in her hand.
I motioned for her to answer and she put the phone to her ear.
"Hello…yes this is Dimitri's phone…how'd you know who I was…oh…okay…bye!"
I pulled out a pair of blur jeans, a black t-shirt and all of the other necessary stuff as Rose spoke on the phone. She smiled and hung up jumping on her knees off of the bed bounding into me.
"They're okay! They're with Kirova in your office looking for a few files actually, which is kind of funny since you aren't even there. Kirova wants both of us to come down there," she explained. Her face sobered. "Something happened."
"What?"
"She wouldn't tell me over the phone." Her voice was so small; I embraced her in a hug and kissed her on the forehead.
"We'll go down there and we'll find out what's going on," I told her moving for the bathroom to finish dressing.
Rose was already dressed in long jeans that covered her feet and a black sweater that had a red stripe running across. She followed me into the bathroom still holding the phone.
"Today everything changes, doesn't it?" she asked holding the idle phone. I set my clothes on the counter and lifted her up so that she was closer to eye level.
"Yeah," I told her taking her face between my hands. "Remember your promise to me that you made at the pier?"
She nodded, holding her hand over my own.
"Good," was all I said.
She already knew.
It didn't need to be aloud.
The promise was strong and firm between us.
"Remember that promise and my promise to keep you safe."
She nodded and we met in the most emotional of kisses, like we'd never see each other again. It was the kind of kiss that two people shared when they were saying goodbye forever.
Later on that day, I'd remember this kiss, the kiss that meant a lot to me over all of the other we'd shared.
For the moment though, we were together and spent our time enjoying the last few hours of our vacation before we went back to the real world and the trouble that came with it.
We stared, longingly into each other's eyes for a beat longer.
I kissed the tip of her nose and pulled away to finish getting dressed.
RPOVAfter I gave up and relented on my strike to stay away from Dimitri's bed, we'd up plenty for it by sharing a few very intense, intimate make out sessions which included the loss of a few shirts and feeling up of someone's bra (mine).
During this time, Dimitri and I had grown used to each other and each of us dressing and undressing in front of each other became a non-issue. I sat cross-legged on the bathroom counter as he pulled his clothes on and tried to avert my gaze from certain places when he had removed the towel by playing with his cell phone.
Even though I'd never really had a boyfriend, by being in the city so often, I'd seen a few naked men in incidences I don't want to relive.
Seeing Dimitri naked would probably make me faint so I busied my self with the phone like it was the most important thing in the world.
I flipped through the pictures and found the one of us at the pier. It seemed so long ago, so faraway.
We were coming back from reality, falling from our comfort cloud and landing right back in the middle of the trouble we thought we could evade for a while.
It brought a damper over the happy mood I had been in for the last two weeks.
The memory of it all kept me alight inside, though.
Dimitri was about to pull on his t-shirt and my favorite button up over it so I took one last feel across his chest for the road.
"Hmmm," I sigh, content.
He leaned down and kissed my lips, letting him self linger there for a second.
"I want to be able to tell you that all of this is going to end well," he said suddenly.
"I know but there's no guarantee right?"
"Right."
"I love you."
It was the first time I said it since we confessed it to each other two weeks ago. Dimitri grinned and kissed me behind the ear, the cheek, the forehead and finally my lips.
"I love you too."
"Always?"
He wasn't taken back by the question as I'd thought he'd be.
"Always. And forever," he added.